Forum Settings
       
Reply To Thread

RMT again: blog of a former IGE employee.Follow

#1 Dec 12 2005 at 1:03 PM Rating: Decent
**
281 posts
http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=40191136&blogID=67869496&Mytoken=1d2dcc2d-f0c7-49b9-8f1d-f8344370e421

Quote:
Saturday, December 10, 2005

IGE , The corrupt company
Current mood: relieved

I spent many hours on this after talking to a good friend about my past employment. It's for friends to understand more of my life and learn from my experiences.

I worked for a company Called IGE not too long ago for 4 months, before I went into college.

www.cannotlinkto -- IGE, a diversified service provider and market maker, operates the world’s largest secure network of buying and selling sites for massively multiplayer online roleplaying games (MMORPGs) virtual currency and assets on the Internet. IGE currently offers exchange services for many of the world’s most popular MMOGs, including both direct buying and selling services as well as a trading platform.

Tomo worked with me.. Our job was simple, we were given 2 well written pdf files , each one with over 50-60 exploits in World of Warcraft's system. We used 2 computers , decent specs windowsxp home , they only had basic programs with windows xp ( internet explorer , notepad etc. ) and World of Warcraft in the system.

We ran on lowest quality everything we were given 2 accounts one for each of us. These accounts contained 1 horde rogue lvl60 and 1 alliance rogue lvl60 on one of the most popular PvP servers.

We both did everything from teleport exploits , instant zone ins , tracking exploits etc. Just basic stuff at first. Within our first month Tomo and I wrote up 4-6 different scripts for IGE which they passed to the "24/7" gold farmers we had not known much at the time the conditions those people were working in so we had not put much thought into what we were doing. Each script offered us around 200-400 USD each. It really did not take much programming knowledge to write them , they gave us a basic macro program and told us to specify a script for a different part of a certain zone ( namely everyones favorite "Tyrs Hand" ).

After working for them about 2 months making a decent amount of money for a part-time job, They "promoted" us to a different level of gold farming.

Since one of the main "managers" was a good friend of ours he had explained to us one of the biggest ways IGE makes gold is not by having a couple hundred chinese boys and girls farming 24/7 for pennies on the dollar, but beleive it or not was through "fixed" epic drops off certain mobs ESPECIALLY when the server had an established economy. Every week we were given a note with a fixed location / time / and mob name that would drop a certain epic item , one example which I remember is a Carrion Grub in Eastern Plaguelands dropping an epic Glowing brightwood staff 2 times in one day one for Tomo an Alliance rogue and one for me a Horde rogue .. basically one for each market.

Although our friend never told us how this process worked it has led me to believe that maybe our "Anti-Gold farming" company Blizzard may be in on IGE's million dollar market , I mean really how much easier can it be ? You make a game have millions of subscribers and then create "make believe" online currency to sell to stupid people with alot of money in their wallets? Sony did it with EverQuest , why not Blizzard with WoW ? Nerds get their pride through having better things than everyone else and Blizzard IGE get their money how perfect can it be? But hey that's just an opinion not a fact ^_^.

Tomo and I had met a $2000.00 quota in 2 weeks , I remember us both walking into the office to get the check but this day was the day that made us both quit.

As referenced here in my blog and as many of you already know , IGE is a slavedriving sweatshop business..But of course they don't admit it , They pay children (16 years ) China/Japan/Korea and other poor countries to sit in warehouses to play 12 hours a day for 1$ an hour. Tomo and I had walked by a room with over 20 over worked / tired and miserable adults and teenagers sitting in front of computers playing World of Warcraft. We were both sick , we had written scripts so that they could sit in front of computers all day to make no where near enough money to get by.

Yes it is their decision they are not slaves but they are being taken advantage of and everyone who buys gold ( I'm sure most of WoW's player base ) supports it. We walked into that office took the check , and reported the building to authorities. It was shut down and moved I am sure to a different place within a week.

Read this , all true as I have experienced it all myself.

http://www.1up.com/do/feature?pager.offset=0&cId=3141815


I hope everyone that has read this has learned something , think before you buy that 2k gold from IGE or e-bay sure your getting that uber-l33t EPIC MOUNT ! or that purple you have always wanted but your also supporting a slave-driving sweatshop business.

This is all my experience with IGE in a 4 month period make comments if you want but don't e-mail me about it.. and I did not link this on World of Warcrafts forums this was meant for my friends not for every single person who plays the game ,

STOP

sending me e-mails about it. I do not play WoW anymore


Funny coincidence that I stumbled upon this today. I was just thinking about the part that I have put in bold, this weekend.
Even if you don't care about the "cheating" aspect... I think this is important.

As hard as it is to find companies who don't abuse their employees, I think it's important to not support those which we know do so.


Even more so in this case... When you buy clothes made by a small child... it's uncool, but you actually need to be clothed; it is a basic need in life (less basic in warm climates, but still needed socially ;) ). Taking the risk of unknowingly supporting an abusive corporation can be more easily forgiven in that case than if buying something completely superficial, such as 10 mil gil for (part of) a scorp harness...


So, anyways... it would be cool if more people like this girl would report those "sweatshops" =)


(the thing about Japan being listed among poor coutries is kinda weird, but I guess it could be blamed on ignorance or very bad wording O_o )



Edited, Mon Dec 12 16:51:25 2005 by Niji
#2 Dec 12 2005 at 2:50 PM Rating: Decent
*
56 posts
You need to understand that $1/hour in those countries is considered good pay because of their economies. Compared to working in factories or on farms, getting paid well to sit in a safe area playing a video game isn't exactly harsh. I'm not supporting it by any means, but it's a decent job for the people in those countries.
#3 Dec 12 2005 at 3:41 PM Rating: Default
**
281 posts
Quote:
You need to understand that $1/hour in those countries is considered good pay because of their economies. Compared to working in factories or on farms, getting paid well to sit in a safe area playing a video game isn't exactly harsh. I'm not supporting it by any means, but it's a decent job for the people in those countries.


I am aware that the hourly pay is different from one country to the next.
People in many European countries get paid much more than us Canadians, but their cost of living is much higher... while people in many other countries get paid less, sometimes because the cost of living is lower, sometimes not...

Many countries have a high percentage of their population living in poverty; for this reason, I don't think that relying upon the average hourly pay for these countries (which I do not know by the way) is the way to go (if most of the population is poor, the average salary would be, well, poor.).

In this case, this girl apparently saw these people in a building where she worked, and she considered that their conditions/salary were awful. She, as a student, was able to make 2000$ in a few weeks. Even if 2000$ was/is an awesome pay, the gap between this amount and 1$/hr is rather large.


If you know the numbers well enough to know for a fact that this *is* a decent salary, please feel free to show me numbers, links, anything... I'd rather stand corrected than be foolishly trying to make a point with erroneous info ;)



edit: someone pointed out to me that this girls was posting from Osaka, Japan. The only people I could see getting paid 1$/hour in Japan would be illegal immigrants, and 1$/hr is definitely not the norm for that country.

Edited, Mon Dec 12 16:58:51 2005 by Niji
#4 Dec 14 2005 at 2:10 PM Rating: Default
You say that a dollar an hour over a 12 hour time span is good in some countries? So by your logic, American colonists were justified in supporting the slave trade because the room and board they offered the slaves were better than mud huts. Facts are not required to support the simple fact that these people get exploited every day. It is common sense. RMT is wrong for many reasons. The first and foremost is that by participating in RMT, you are in violation of a contract and become actionable if caught. The second is that it is cheating. That being said, I have played FFXI for two years now and have never purchased gil. I blacklist people who admit that they do. Anybody that supports this vile industry should be violated by a gorilla. So ***** you and the asian slave you rode in on.

changed "of" to "if"

Edited, Wed Dec 14 14:12:58 2005 by linktri
#5 Dec 14 2005 at 9:47 PM Rating: Decent
*
61 posts
Thats sad... Kindda... Compared to us...yeah....compared to what other jobs that they really cant pick from....no
#6 Dec 14 2005 at 10:41 PM Rating: Good
***
1,391 posts
;;>.> You know I would rather sit inside and play a game all day for a dollar an hour then work out on a farm and not make enough to feed my family... meh...
#7 Dec 15 2005 at 1:40 AM Rating: Good
*
56 posts
Quote:
You say that a dollar an hour over a 12 hour time span is good in some countries? So by your logic, American colonists were justified in supporting the slave trade because the room and board they offered the slaves were better than mud huts. Facts are not required to support the simple fact that these people get exploited every day. It is common sense. RMT is wrong for many reasons. The first and foremost is that by participating in RMT, you are in violation of a contract and become actionable if caught. The second is that it is cheating. That being said, I have played FFXI for two years now and have never purchased gil. I blacklist people who admit that they do. Anybody that supports this vile industry should be violated by a gorilla. So ***** you and the asian slave you rode in on.


Um, I specifically stated that I don't support this, so I don't know why you say "***** you" to me. Also, I'm vietnamese, and we didn't ride in on asian slaves, we rode in on boats. I'd rather have children sweating away playing a game than working in factories making Nikes and Converses to name a few.

Try this, go over to vietnam with $1 (american of course) and see what you can buy. Go to California where the minimum wage is $6.75 and see what you can buy. If you haven't figured it out, you can get a lot more out of your dollar in vietnam.
Reply To Thread

Colors Smileys Quote OriginalQuote Checked Help

 

Recent Visitors: 21 All times are in CST
Anonymous Guests (21)